Adding 2 years

I have a modest proposal to add two years to our inadequate basic education cycle.

To appreciate my proposal, however, you have to understand how the Department of Education (DepEd) works.

One anecdote illustrates the subculture that exists in DepEd. When he was Secretary of Education, Raul Roco once spoke to several principals in a meeting. He told them that he wanted to empower them, because principal empowerment was on their wish list.

“From now on,” Roco told them, “you can make your own decisions about matters concerning your schools, such as textbooks, teaching strategies, budget, repairs, and so on. You do not have to consult me or anyone else. You accept the responsibility, so you now have the authority. You do not have to wait for a memo from the Central Office to start any project that will benefit your school.”

One principal raised his hand immediately. Expressing what was obviously on the mind of all the other principals, he said, “Mister Secretary, can you please put that in a memo?”

DepEd is highly centralized, with nothing of any significance being undertaken without the explicit or implicit approval of the Secretary. Along the same vein, everything said or written down by the Secretary is considered as having the force of law. The Secretary’s issuances (as memos and orders are called) form the jurisprudence upon which all DepEd activities are based.

This is both a bad thing and a good thing.

It is a bad thing because a Secretary can easily abuse his or her power. To their credit, all Education Secretaries have refrained from abusing the awesome powers of the office. Just tick off the names of Education Secretaries and you will see that the position has gone only to extraordinarily principled individuals – Florencio Abad, Ramon Bacani (OIC), Onofre D. Corpuz, Edilberto de Jesus, Armand Fabella, Ricardo Gloria, Andrew Gonzalez, Fe Hidalgo (Acting), Jaime Laya, Erlinda Pefianco, Lourdes Quisumbing, Alejandro Roces, Raul Roco, and the current one, Jesli Lapuz.

It is also a good thing, because a Secretary can easily change the policy of the Department with one stroke of the pen. The DepEd Secretary is almost like the President of the Republic, in that a single department order or memo is like an Executive Order, to be followed to the letter until or unless expressly countermanded by Malacañang (in the case of the President, by the Supreme Court).

Another characteristic of DepEd, aside from its hierarchical structure, is its consistency and adherence to tradition. A DepEd policy tends to last through several Secretaries. Because DepEd is so big (bigger than any Philippine corporation and even bigger than some countries, such as Iceland), it changes very slowly, if at all. On the other hand, paradoxically, it is possible for one Secretary to institute a dramatic change which is then almost impossible to reverse.

My modest proposal is this. The next DepEd Secretary should simply sign an order saying that all Grade 6 students with grades averaging 84 or below will take Grade 7 and that all Fourth Year students with grades averaging 84 or below will take Fifth Year High School. That means that, as far as the system is concerned, we will have 12 years of basic education, but as far as individuals are concerned, bright students can still go to college after 10 years.

What will happen once this order is signed (aside from the Secretary being fired immediately by the next President because of the inevitable public uproar)?

Grade 6 students that would normally drop out of school because they cannot cope with the academic load will no longer drop out; instead, they will take another year in elementary school. Brighter students will just follow the status quo: they will go to high school immediately.

Fourth Year students that would normally not be admitted to college because of their poor grades will now have another year of high school to prepare for college entrance exams. Brighter students will go immediately to college as in the present system.

The biggest objection to adding one or two years to basic education is that colleges and universities will not have incoming students for one or two years (and no sophomores the next year, and so on). Because more than 60% of tertiary schools are in private hands and depend on tuition, many colleges and universities will go bankrupt.

My proposal solves this problem confronting private colleges and universities. They will still have incoming students, though not as many as before. Since the students will be brighter, however, the intellectual level in freshman courses will rise, something all schools want.

Since no one in his or her right mind would want to face the uncontrollable public wrath for being so high-handed and arbitrary, this proposal will never be adopted by any DepEd Secretary.

That is why, instead, we are implementing the more realistic order of the Cabinet to put in place, starting June 2010, a system that will force high school graduates to take pre-university, except for bright students that can go straight to college. We will still add one or two years to basic education, but this time, the students will be handled by CHED (and, therefore, colleges and universities) and not DepEd.